Dr. Haakon Nygard

Dr. Haakon Nygard leads a project to sequence the genomes of centenarians in search for a genetic cause of dementia-free aging. Dr. Nygard is the director of the UBC Hospital Clinic for Alzheimer and Related Disorders. As both a clinician and a scientist, Dr. Nygaard hopes to bridge the gap between basic science and clinical neurology to facilitate novel therapeutic development in Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Eric Smith

Dr. Eric Smith is Professor of Neurology, Radiology, and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary, and the holder of the endowed Katthy Taylor Chair in Vascular Dementia. He is the Medical Director of the Cognitive Neurosciences Clinic and a member of the Calgary Stroke Program. He directs the Clinical and Research Fellowship program in Cognitive Neurosciences. Dr. Smith graduated from McGill University, trained in Neurology in teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School, and was Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard University before being recruited to Calgary in 2008. He Co-Chairs the Canadian Stroke Best Practices Advisory Committee of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia. Dr. Smith’s research team investigates how cerebral small vessel diseases cause cognitive impairment and dementia.

Mark Breslaw

When many of us picture someone living with dementia, we picture someone older, in their sixties and seventies – not someone in their forties like Mark Breslaw of South Surrey. The 49-year-old, who lives with his wife Shonna and youngest son Michael, loves the community for its accessibility, amenities and family activities. He enjoys walking at the beach — something that has become more common since his diagnosis of younger onset dementia. 

Dr. Jennifer Cooper

Talk Title: Integration of Blood Tests into Alzheimer’s Disease Care

Dr. Jennifer Cooper is a recent PhD graduate from the Wellington Lab at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Her research focuses on advancing the understanding of plasma biomarkers of neurodegeneration across the spectrum of brain health. Her doctoral work defined normative biomarker ranges, examined signatures of cognitive resilience, evaluated pathological specificity through autopsy confirmation, and identified diagnostic thresholds to support implementation of blood-based biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Howard Chertkow

Dr. Chertkow is a practicing cognitive neurologist at Toronto’s Baycrest Health Sciences Centre, where he Is also Senior Scientist and Chair in Cognitive Neurology and Innovation at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute. Prior to 2018 he was a Professor at McGill University in Montreal Canada. He is now a Professor in the Dept. of Medicine (Neurology) at University of Toronto. At Baycrest he is also director of the new Bank Family Clinical Trials Unit and the Kimel Family Central for Brain Health. Dr. Chertkow is an active researcher in the area of dementia. His major areas of research interest include early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease and prediction of deterioration in individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment, and therapy of cognitive disorders in Alzheimer Disease and Frontotemporal dementia using neuromodulation approaches such as transcranial direct current stimulation. Dr. Chertkow’s lab is now focused on developing transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as ancillary therapy in elderly individuals with neurodegenerative disease. Thirty-two of his publications have over 100 citations, and three of the publications have been cited over 2000 times. He is senior author of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), which has become an international standard for diagnosis of MCI, has been cited over 21,000 times and is the most cited paper in the field of neurology in the world in the 21st century. Dr. Chertkow is on Stanford University’s 2020 list of “Top 2% Cited Scientists”. In 2014 Dr. Chertkow became the Scientific Director for the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA), a national organization established by the Canadian government via CIHR and partners. CCNA, now approved for a five year Phase 3 beginning in April 2024, is the largest grant every awarded in dementia research in Canada, and brings together 320 leading Canadian dementia researchers to establish national teams and platforms to produce breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of the dementing illnesses.

Dr. Roger Zemek

Talk Title: Expanding the biomarker portfolio of the Consortium for the Early Identification of Alzheimer’s Disease–Quebec: integrating AD pathology, metabolic dysfunction, and nutritional markers.

Dr. Roger Zemek is a pediatric emergency physician at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), where he is also a Senior Scientist at the CHEO Research Institute. He is a full Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine and holds a Tier-1 Clinical Research Chair in Pediatric Concussion at the at the University of Ottawa.  He is the Past Chair of the Pediatric Emergency Research Canada (PERC) network, he is on the leadership of multiple concussion and TBI collaborations, and he is the co-founder and Scientific Director at 360 Concussion Care.  Dr. Zemek is the Principal Investigator of TRANSCENDENT, one of the largest and most comprehensive concussion research programs in the world. Internationally recognized as a leading voice in concussion science, he is founded and co-leads the internationally adopted living pediatric concussion guidelines, and discoveries from his prospective multicentre studies have helped shaped best practices for the diagnosis, management, and prediction of concussion recovery.

Dr. Ramon Diaz Arrastia

Talk Title: Expanding the biomarker portfolio of the Consortium for the Early Identification of Alzheimer’s Disease–Quebec: integrating AD pathology, metabolic dysfunction, and nutritional markers.

Dr. Diaz-Arrastia is Professor of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine where he serves as Director of Clinical Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research. Dr. Diaz-Arrastia’s research interests are focused for the past 20+ years on understanding the molecular, cellular, and tissue level mechanisms of secondary neuronal injury and neuroregeneration, with the goal of developing therapeutic interventions. Dr. Diaz-Arrastia received his MD and PhD degrees at Baylor College of Medicine in 1988.  After internship in Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital/Harvard Medical School, he completed a residency and fellowship in Neurology at Columbia University and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.  He served on the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern from 1993 – 2011, and at the Uniformed Services University and the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine from 2011 – 2016.    Dr. Diaz-Arrastia has published over 300 primary research papers, as well as over 50 invited reviews and book chapters.  He has also served in several national committees related to TBI research and practice, convened by the NIH, DoD, VA, and the National Academy Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Dr. Nick Caron

Talk Title: Expanding the biomarker portfolio of the Consortium for the Early Identification of Alzheimer’s Disease–Quebec: integrating AD pathology, metabolic dysfunction, and nutritional markers.

Nicholas Caron, PhD, is a Research Associate at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, where his research focuses on biomarker discovery and validation for Huntington disease. He leverages multi-omics approaches to identify molecular markers in biofluids that reflect disease biology and therapeutic response. Through integrated studies spanning preclinical animal models and clinical cohorts, his work aims to develop more sensitive tools for predicting disease progression and evaluating emerging therapies.

Dr. Jianjia Fan

Talk Title: Blood Biomarker Discovery in Preclinical Mouse Models

Dr. Jianjia Fan received her Ph.D from University of British Columbia in Neuroscience on studying the role of apolipoprotein E in neurodegenerative diseases. Her recent research work focuses on investigating innovative applications of blood-based biomarkers in preclinical models of aging, neurodegenerative diseases and traumatic brain injury. Outside the lab, she enjoys video games and caring for two very opinionated cats.

Olga Sandoval-Boczkowska

Talk Title: Challenges in the Interpretation of Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers in Clinical Practice

Olga Sandoval-Boczkowska is a Research Assistant in the DeMarco Lab at the University of British Columbia, where she works on biomarker validation studies in Alzheimer’s disease. Her research focuses on the analytical and clinical performance of plasma and CSF biomarkers, including pTau and Aβ assays, to support accurate and accessible diagnosis. She has over five years of experience across academia and industry, with a master degree in medical biotechnology.

Dr. Michael Chen

Talk Title: Pathways to Clinical Implementation of Biomarkers in British Columbia

Dr. Michael Chen is a clinical pathologist, specializing in clinical chemistry and translational mass spectrometry. He is the Department Head and Medical Director of Laboratory Medicine, Pathology and Medical Genetics at Island Health, and Provincial Discipline Lead at PHSA. As a researcher, Dr Chen is the scientific director of UBC Translational Omics Lab in the Victoria General Hospital and the director of Vancouver Island Biobank. Dr. Chen’s research focuses on clinical mass spectrometry, biobanking, biomarker validation and clinical implementation.

Dr. Michael Hayden

Talk Title: Biomarkers & Drug Development: Crucial Enabler of Early Readout & Accelerators of Endpoints

Dr. Hayden is a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia, the highest honour UBC can confer on any faculty member. He is the most cited author in the world for Huntington Disease (HD) and has authored over 960 peer-reviewed publications (total citations: 115,003; GS h-index: 173, i10 index: 805; WoS h-index: 142).

Dr. Hayden’s research is primarily on translational medicine, including HD, predictive and personalized medicine, drug development, and gene therapy. He identified the first mutations underlying LPL Deficiency and developed gene therapy approaches resulting in the first approved gene therapy (Glybera) in the world.

Dr. Hayden is the recipient of numerous prestigious honours and awards including the 2025 Dr. Don Rix Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Huntington Study Group, induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame (2017), the Order of Canada (2011), and the Order of British Columbia (2010).